CHOW KIT
One morning in December 1991, taking a cheap hotel room on the edge of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown, I had no idea my experiences there would manifest into my first independent photo feature. After leaving my bag in the room and going for a casual wander I realised I was in the middle of KL’s seedy red-light district of Chow Kit.
The area was home and workplace to many of Malaysia’s transvestite and trans-sexual prostitute community.
Most would move to other towns from time to time, though would return, drawn back by the money and kinship. This sense of community was extremely important in a society where Islamic rule presides over peoples of Islamic as well as those of Buddhist and Hindu faith. Incongruities abound in the streets and alleyways of Chow Kit with heroin addicts shoot up in full view of those living nearby, and both female and transvestite prostitutes working on adjacent streets. This in a country where drug trafficking brings the death penalty and prostitution is officially outlawed under Islamic law.
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